David Mayer and Pamela Poulin-Mayer

Can I ask you both to state your names, please?

I'm David Meyer.

I'm Pamela Meyer.

Thanks. And can I have your consent to record this interview?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. We said we would start with family history a little bit. Would you guys talk about what you know about your ancestors?

Sure, I'm the great-great-great-grandson of Samson Raphael Hirsch, a rather famous rabbi from the Frankfurt Synagogue for 40 years, I think. Um, and he's known for helping to modernize the Jewish orthodoxy to some degree, sort of-he didn't reform Judaism, but he made it, I think, he brought it into the 19th century to some, some degree, to make it more, for a larger audience to still be an Orthodox Jew or a Conservative Jew and fit more lifestyles. And I think, um, and, uh, so he was quite beloved and his line passed down through, uh, the Levi's, my Omah's line to my father and then to me.

What do you remember being told about Rabbi Hirsch as a kid? Or how do you remember learning about that, that ancestry?

Yeah, I didn't know much until I started preparing for my bar mitzvah, a couple of years beforehand. And, so I was 11 or 12 when I, I when I learned a little bit about him. I remember mostly sticking my head that we went to the gentleman who was going to help me prepare my Haftarah portion, and he got very wide - eyed when he heard, to whom I was related. And I was like, "Oh, I guess this guy's a big deal."

Let's say his name. He's somewhat known as the Rabbi of Hillel at Cornell.

That's not who I'm talking about, though. It was the younger gentleman who was helping me prep. I can't remember what his name was.

Oh, okay.

But Rabbi Goldfarb.

Yeah. You see him in journals and magazines.

Yeah. Um, and in fact, several years ago, I took a brief trip to Germany and, uh, got to stay a night in Frankfurt on my way to Berlin and went and found the gravesite of Samson and his wife. And in fact, I had been searching around the Jewish part of the cemetery for quite some time, unable to locate them. Eventually, just before I gave up, I went back to the map and noticed that there, in fact, was a big red arrow leading to their spot that I had missed entirely. And so I went and checked that out and got to see there was actually a little, little place for prayers and coins to be left or to light a votive. Um, so that was very nice.

Yeah. Were you told any stories about him as a person beyond, you know, what most people know about his accomplishments?

Well, I eventually read some on him. Um, I do know that he was somewhat of a Renaissance man and very inquisitive. And he wrote a lot of treatises on Judaism. Um, and beyond that, I don't recall.

Mhm. Okay. Even today on Amazon, you will see tons and tons of his commentaries. How much is on the Holy Scriptures. So he's still in translation even. Yeah. I could give you a little bit about how we just descended from him. So there's Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and then he had many children. And David descends from Julius Hirsch. And he was a businessman, and many of his children were also involved in writing books and became rabbis and things like that. But as you probably know. And then, one of his daughters was Jeanette, David's Great-Grandmother, and her children, Martha was David's Omah, and all five of the children played a musical instrument, so I don't know, Hirsch that, there's probably always music. But going back to Hirsch he wanted people to be in the world, but not of the world. He wanted Jews to get an education and things, and not just rely on Jewish education. So it was a little change. Sometimes people will say he's reformed, but he had nothing to do with the Reform Movement as such. And so, your Great-Omah, Jeanette, then had a daughter, Martha, and she played the cello and she didn't want to play the cello. Being a willful person in general. So she broke the bow of the cello, and she didn't have to play anymore. And so then David's dad, my husband, learned the violin and he studied. Of course, you can tell him about where he studied music and everything.

Yeah. He studied, from childhood, as I ended up doing later. Um, and he ended up at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Um, and then at Illinois Champaign-Urbana, where he studied under-was it Paul Roland, was his name?

Yeah. Very famous immigrant from Hungary. Yeah. Violin teacher. The best violin teacher in the United States. So he went there for that and he was a major in violin, but he also studied composition while he was there. So you have to be pretty good to be a major in violin at Illinois.

Yeah. Um, so music engulfed his life from a pretty early age. And he would go on to play in professional orchestras in Fort Worth Symphony. Uh, he taught at Texas Wesleyan, and he ended up in Central New York as a music professor, composer, conductor, and violin teacher and performer. And, he helped to get the local repertory theatre going. He often wrote when he was composing, he wrote for musicals, as well as classical, or more strictly classical pieces of anything from symphonic to choral. So he kind of did a little of everything. Um, and that repertory theater that he helped get off the ground in 1972, he actually performed as the Fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof, which was also the year I was born. Um, and maybe a portent of things to come, as just a few years later, I started picking up violin. When dad asked me at the age of my age of four, he said, "Do you want to learn violin?" "Sure. Yeah, great. Sounds great."

But a little while later you said...

"I didn't know what I was getting into." So I, and I studied violin for about 14 years through high school, essentially, played in orchestras. I got to play in the orchestra with Dad and Pam. Um, he was still conducting the college community orchestra there at SUNY Cortland where he was a professor for decades. And, his last semester there, I got to, perform in the orchestra with them.

He was the youngest ever to play in the orchestra.

Yeah. What age would he have been?

I think I was 12 or 13. Yeah, I think 12, I think so.

We didn't have to get a babysitter anymore. [Handy.] You saved us a lot of money. [Laughs]

Yeah.

Were you also playing?

Yeah, I was Principal Clarinet. Uh, the faculty all played principal chairs, and Lutz used to be the Concertmaster, but then he decided when there was a need that he would be the Orchestral Conductor, and they were happy to have him.

And this was SUNY Cortland?

Cortland, Central New York.

Okay. And that's where you grew up?

Yep.

Um, okay. So from four years old, you're playing violin under his instruction?

Not under his instruction.

Okay.

No, they wanted to "remain friends," as Lutz would put it. And also, it was really three and a half.

Okay. Um, yeah, I think probably wisely so. He chose to have me instructed by others. I learned the Suzuki Method, a very famous method often used to teach children because it teaches it as another language, essentially. Um, he was very supportive, but on the side. [Laughs]

We went, we went to every lesson. So it was two lessons a week. And one of us would sit in on the lesson and take notes. We were supposed to take notes. And then on Saturdays, you had group lessons, and then they'd reinforce things. The same teacher and like, you know, you'd learn preparation.

Yep.

[Laughs] Okay.

Three lessons a week?

No, it was one solo lesson, one private lesson, and then one group lesson.

And you wanted to hear about Fiddler. Um Unlike in Broadway, they usually use an actor to mime playing the violin on the very top of the stage roof. What you saw actually didn't have quite a roof, right? Was not the full house.

Right.

So, what's his friend, the director who created Cortland Repertory Theatre? And they did everything in repertoire. So each night was a different play or musical. So the whole summer, you know, you could go anytime you wanted to, but that was very hard on the actors, too, you know, have to know a lot and everything. So he talked him into going up with his violin, going up the stairs, and sitting way on the roof, and he had a little bit of acrophobia, so he wasn't really crazy about it, but he did it several times.

I love that story. Do you want to share any other memories of Lutz? Like who, who was he as a person? As a musician?

Yeah, he was a sweet man who lived music in every fashion. He was also very politically aware, and he read a lot of history and biographies. Um, we had some of our best conversations in the car because he might have had the radio on. And if it was NPR, then maybe listening to the news or commentary. And I just asked questions, and he'd answer them. Never really forced anything down my throat, which was nice. Um, and then musically we would play Name That Tune, or Name That Composer. He wasn't that hard on me. [Laughs] Um, but he helped me learn a lot of the famous composer styles by listening and being able to, over time, gauge the difference between a Mozart and a Beethoven, and then eventually, maybe even the difference between a Mozart and a Haydn, which closely, much more closely, uh, sound related, I guess. Um, and so we would play a game. Of course, 99.9% of the time he knew the piece and the composer, three notes into the song, or a piece. And so he'd help me work it out. And, "Oh, so what time period do you think this is? Okay. What? What area or country? Maybe you think, maybe this is?" And then sort of shrink it down. And one time I beat him. There was one time we were listening to an Italian piece, and I only knew a handful of Italian names, and that worked in my favor in this case, that I get. I think I might have guessed Verdi or something. And he was like, "Oh, I think maybe Bellini," or something like that. He was going on to one of the more esoteric names. And, um, it turned out it was just Verdi. So that's my one claim to fame.

On longer trips, we'd teach him music theory. So I remember one time we were teaching you intervals, going up the scale and stuff, and then later at Chapel Hill, he took music theory and a lot of other music courses.

I ended up at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well. Not for music, but partially because I knew they had a good music program and my dad had been there, and I did take several courses there. I switched-I had always been singing in choirs also from a young age, and I kind of switched off of the orchestral stuff into various vocal performances there. So I was in the Carolina Choir, and I was in an a cappella pop group, having fun doing that. So I kept up with music in that realm and got sort of the equivalent of a Music Minor there. While I actually got my Major in Journalism. Uh, I thought maybe at the time I'd become a sports broadcaster, but I wanted a journalism degree. I thought that was a more well-rounded sounding degree, if nothing else, than a communications degree. And Chapel Hill had a wonderful, highly ranked journalism school. So I thought, "Well, that's a great combination. I've got that. Getting a well-rounded education. I've got a good music department and good sports." Um, so that was a good fit for me. Um, as it was for Dad and he never-there was another thing he never forced, you know, onto me, or anything. He mentioned it, I think, when I said, "Well, maybe I'll get into journalism." He said, "Well, you know, Carolina has a good journalism school, too." So then I did the research myself, and, yeah, it was a great experience.

Um, I want to step back and ask about him and also about growing up, like what your family's relationship to Judaism was, or the Jewish community where you're living, or any particular traditions you guys. uh, did?

Or I'd like to add one thing. Yeah. Um, if you knew my husband, Lutz Meyer, one of the first things you would notice is his sense of humor. He had an incredible sense of humor, and he was sort of a quiet guy. And he would never tell a joke to tell a joke. If somebody said something that reminded him, and it would be the quintessential joke for the situation, then he would tell a joke. Otherwise, he'd be sitting there, and then people would be talking and everything, and then he'd say something very wry, and then people would stop, not expecting to hear from him, and then they'd laugh because he'd said something really funny.

He's a master of timing. I really got my interest in comedy, I think, from him. And, I've grown up to somewhat be considered a pretty funny guy amongst my friends, and I largely attribute that to the start I got with Dad. He even helped, in a way that helped me study that. I think, just in the way he would talk about Jack Benny and the Masters back then, and how they made something funny, you know? Um, so, yeah, that was definitely a big part of our relationship as well.

I must add that most of your course credits were in music at Chapel Hill. I counted them. Maybe you don't think so, but it's true. [Okay.] And I taught there for a year as a visiting professor. Um, we were all there at different times, but Lutz and I would go to a national music conference together, and then friends he knew from that time period, and friends I knew, they would look at us and say, "Oh my God, what are you two doing together?"

Yeah. They knew you from separate...

Yeah, different lives.

Yeah. Um, did you want to talk about your family's Jewish experience at all, or do you want to?

Oh, yeah, I mean, largely for me as a kid, it was around preparing for my bar mitzvah. Um, a couple of years of Sunday School and Hebrew School, and I did have my bar mitzvah at a Conservative temple. Uh, it's a small place for a nice community in Cortland. Um, with a good cantor, a guy with a lovely voice, was a friend of the family named Bruce Siegel. Um, I think it was his name. Yeah, he was a student of Dad's at one point. Right?

Yeah, right. He took music theory, and his wife took music theory from Lutz, and he would quote anything Lutz would say, you know, as a student and then as an adult, you're just waiting for him to say something funny.

Um, and then for a couple of years afterwards, still, you know, go to services. You know, Friday night usually would be the one. Um, but I think by the time you know, I'd gone to college, my observances had somewhat fallen off. I'll still occasionally do things, largely if there's family involved. Um, I did I did decide a couple of years ago to host a Seder for local friends up on Whidbey Island, where I live with my girlfriend. Um, just to give them some flavor and remind myself that it's a lot of work to put on a Seder. [Laughs]

But he has Hirsch's Haggadah, too.

Right, yeah. Um, but it was a lovely experience. Um, do it again someday.

I got you shortened-a real shortened version, Seder in 30 minutes. You may have seen it on Amazon, but just in case you ever. But of course, everybody, as David did, just picks out the main things. Nobody has-unless we went to Fred Blumberg's, who would go on to midnight and but nobody actually, really, do they? Everybody picks and chooses. Well, that's what I think.

Depends on how Orthodox you want to observe, I guess. But I want a little bit of ceremony. Right? I mean, that's if you're going to want to do a ceremony in Judaism, I think Passover is the time to do it. Um, so, you know, try to involve some of that.

And Lutz was brought up Reformed in Wilmington. And for a while there, he thought of being a rabbi. And, Phillip likes that story that Opah was a cousin, a nephew of Lutz. That he "Well, what are you thinking of being, Lutz you know and everything?" But, "Well, I was thinking of being a rabbi." "Oh, no, no, no, you said music, didn't you?" [Laughs]

Right.

Um. These are great stories, thank you. I'm curious. You mentioned a lot of driving around. Like you listened to NPR while you were driving. You did your music theory lessons while you were driving. Was this just, like, did you road trip? Where were you going?

Oh, I mean, often this is just local travel.

Yeah.

Well, it's 20 minutes into town, you know. That wasn't theory. It was like if we were going to North Carolina to see Lutz's sister, Laura, and her three boys. Or going down to Florida to see Omah and Opah. Don't you think those were the long trips?

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. We didn't talk about it all. So him getting over here. [Oh, yeah.] Um, so Hans and Martha, my Omah and Opah in Hamburg. Um, they have two children. Hannah Laura, who would become Laura over here. And Leo Lutz, who would become Lutz Leo over here, uh, because they called him Lutz all the time. And, he was born in December of '34. His sister was three and a half years older than he. And, of course, it's already Nazi Germany. Uh, everything is going downhill. Uh, my aunt, in fact, at one point translated a diary of Omah's that she had kept in the couple of years before they left. And, it's not that they spend a lot of time talking about the Nazis or the horrors that they're seeing. It's more in the background, and it occasionally pops in while she's just talking about everyday life. But you get the foreboding as time goes by, and the fact that they need to get out of there. And the story, I don't think this was in the diary. But the story is, as I recall, it was when they eventually decided they had to go, that Opah wanted to go to Paris, I believe. [Right.] And Omah said, "No, we've got relatives already over in the States. We're going there." And thank God that they went that direction. So in '37, Opah Hans came over. He had to first establish himself for a year as being able to take care of a family. So he came over first, and he start working for Allied Chemical right away, I think.

It sounds like...

Yeah, I think so, [Yeah.] Um, and got a good job and tried to start assimilating, as hard as that is. And a year later, I believe June of '38, Omah Martha, Hannah Laura and Lutz came over. He was three and a half at that time. Uh, on, uh, one of the Hamburg Line, it was the Washington.

Yeah, well, you got the manifest.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Um, and, uh, there was a story that I always get the details wrong that supposedly for a time on the actual boat they were stolen by somebody.

They were kidnapped by a sailor on the boat and kept for several days. And of course, Martha Omah objected and went to the captain and everything. And they had him there, and they said, okay, "You have Leica camera. And, you know, you weren't allowed to bring that with you from Germany, right? We will turn you in."I don't know how, I mean, the Americans didn't care. And, "If you say anything more." But she got the children back, and, I don't know, maybe Laura remembers it, but well, Lutz doesn't remember much about it at all. And he just remembers there were double-decker beds and going up and down this ladder. That's all he remembers. [Laughs]

Yeah. Um, and I think they did recall seeing the Statue of Liberty as they came through. They did not go through Ellis Island. I think Ellis Island was done by then. But, um, and then they made their way to Wilmington, Delaware, where relatives were already. And spent his young childhood there before moving down to Greensboro family, North Carolina. Um.

He's got a job.

He got a job.

He had to move.

Yeah. Okay. That's what it was.

In Germany, um, let's tell this one story, that Hans Opah was heckling the Nazis at this big speech and everything, and he was heckling them. And then he had to take off and run. And some of the youth Brownshirts ran after him. But he must have been very fit because he eluded them. And, so that-he was a wheat merchant in Germany, and Omah was a secretary in four languages. So she was very good. And, it wasn't a problem of the Germans letting them leave. It was the United States government because they would only let one person come, not the whole family. At the time, even though there were three brothers here with three families already in Wilmington, who would each of them volunteer for them, or what? I can't remember the word that you use when you... [Like, sponsor?] Sponsor them. And they actually did. They lived in homes of the other families when they first came. But, Opah was only able to get two part-time jobs, and they wanted one full-time job, the government. And so he got both employers to stand up for him in court and say it was the equivalent of one full-time job. So he just squeaked by bringing the family and these-in '37 and '38, this was not good times. So anything could have happened to that.

Yeah.

Do you want to take a little break?

Yeah, I just turned it back on so I could get framed up again. Okay, if you're ready to keep going, you can go. Um. You wanted to explain how Omah got here?

Right. So, Lutz's grandmother and David's great-grandmother, Omah Jeanette, was the granddaughter of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Uh, she couldn't get out, so she wasn't allowed out to 1939, father, '37, the family. '38 and then the grandmother, '39. Of course, you remember that that was the year of Kristallnacht, and things were starting to really get bad. But she was allowed out. The Germans, they wanted to get rid of Jews. So it was the United States government that was preventing a lot of this. And I don't think people really realize that. Anyway, it's told to me by Lutz. And so then she came over and she lived with her dad's family, and she was a wonderful lady. She was really sweet. And one of his other aunts told Lutz that Omah Jeanette would always say "You're her favorite."

And he hadn't really talked about it. And you know the details better than I do. But on my Opah's side, not everybody got out. Um, so some of them did end up going to the camps, um, and dying.

His grandmother, three aunts, and one nephew. And a lot of things seem to-the more that I read-a lot of things seem to have happened in 1942 because the Nazis were very systematic. They started with so-and-so and so-and-so, and one sister of Martha wasn't taken right away because she married an Aryan who converted to Judaism, and they had children. But since she was with someone they recognized, as you know, Aryans are okay. They took her towards the end, and then, the allies blew up the train tracks ahead of them, and all the Jews fled from the trains. And she finally got back outside of Hamburg, where they had escaped to a farm. A farmer took them in during the firebombs in Hamburg, which are Jews, and everybody that was related to them weren't allowed in the air raid shelters, or the crypts of the churches were used. So they just got in their car and just kept riding until they..."Oh, this looks nice." And they asked the farmer, "Can we rent two rooms?" And so that worked out.

Wow. And I had a great-grandmother who made it to or not? Uh, sorry. Um, Great...What was Fifi? What do we call her?

Uh, she's a great aunt. Great Aunt. But she was your Opah's sister.

Sister. Right? She made it out to England. Uh, and then Gunther, of course, were in Hungary, right? But I don't remember. Where did they start? In Hungary?

No, the family that was in Hamburg. Everybody came from Hamburg, including Samson Raphael Hirsch, and hen he moved to Frankfurt. [Right, right.] Um, a sister of Martha, because the three boys were in America. Uh, she was married to the Aryan. And so they were in Hamburg. Is that what you wanted to say?

I don't remember. Go ahead.

But what we did to commemorate the ones who were lost in your family was, we got Russell Block brass stones that you would have in the street. You'd have Russell blocks, you know, they call them cobblestones, but they're little squares. And so this artist devoted his life to making these. And he puts a person's name on it, the year they were deported, because they don't know when they died. And then he put them in their last known-in the street in front of their last known address. And that was a very nice commemorative thing to do.

Yeah. I'm curious about who in your family did the storytelling, the history keeping. How did you learn these stories?

Um, well, the collector was largely Pam.

But Lutz told me everything. I just have a retentive memory. [Laughs]

Yeah. So, I mean, that's where I got most of it was either dad or Pam. [Laughs]

Yeah, well, I was very interested in it, you know. And I thought this memory should be preserved, and we should do all we can for Jewish people and their descendants who escaped. It shouldn't be forgotten, lest we forget.

Yeah. Um, okay. I'm curious about bringing us up to the present. So, can you talk about how you ended up in Washington? What, what is your musical life like today?

Yeah. So, about a year after college, I, was partially influenced by the grunge scene that was still hanging on a little bit. This was 1995. Uh, I had gotten into guitar and rock and roll and I was watching Northern Exposure, and I loved that show, and,

Your dad loved it. Really loved it.

Yeah. And I packed up the car and moved out here and fell in love with the area. And, I've been out here for maybe 30 years in late August. And pretty soon after, I got a little band together. A three-person band that was terrible. [Laughs] And, we did about three open mic nights, and that was it for that.

Oh, I have never heard that story.

That was in 1997, by then. Um, my good friend Paul at the time, and then somebody I worked with, but eventually-so I got into corporate life out here as a way to sustain myself, always knowing that I was never really going to think of myself as a corporate boy. But I needed some sort of work-life balance going on where I could provide for myself, and

He liked to eat.

Yeah. [Laughs] And keep the arts at my fingertips. And eventually-so I was working for a company called Western Wireless, which has since gone through other machinations and been subsumed by other things. They spun off what is now T-Mobile. Um, and so I was finally establishing myself, with something like a career, and I happened to meet somebody in my department, I was in the HR department there, who had a husband playing in an '80s band. Or they wanted to establish an '80s cover band. They had been doing other things, and they wanted to turn it into an '80s cover band. And somehow I don't remember how she said. "Hey, do you sing?" I think. And I say, "Yeah, actually I do. Uh, and I play the guitar. Uh, electric guitar.: She's like, "Oh, because my husband's band is looking for both." And, so I auditioned for them and got in, and we formed Mr. Miyagi.

You've heard of it, of course?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure. But, we had a good five-year run as a largely '80s kind of dance rock cover band. Uh, in the early 2000s, and eventually I was I moved to Tampa for a year to work on a project. Um, and so I had to leave the band. Um, but that was a lot of fun. And I really got to work my rock and roll chops and had a lot of fun doing that. And eventually, after I came back, I did a couple of other, more rock-heavy, uh, kind of cover bands. So, I've kept my hand in it here and there. And in the meantime, in the early 2000s, I also decided to start exploring my world more artistically in the realm of theater and acting. And so I started taking some acting classes, near me, where I was living on Capitol Hill at the time. And, it was a great teaching theater, Freehold, and had a great first teacher, which I think is always so important. I took Shakespeare first, which was actually recommended. A lot of people kind of wonder, "Really, Shakespeare first?" But after you get over the initial hump, you find that he's actually the best teacher of theater that there ever was. And so when you start to understand what Shakespeare was doing, then you really start to learn theatre and how to act, and then you can expand from there. And so I did. And after several classes, I happened to be in a class with a gentleman who was a playwright on Whidbey Island. He asked me to come audition for one of his shows that was about to be produced. That audition was in 2004. The show was in 2005, and I got the lead male role in that and started acting.

What was it?

That was Lillian and Limbo. Um, it was a circus play. So I got to-in my first in my first role, other than I did do a musical in high school, but my first role since training, I got to learn a little trapeze and try to act at the same time. Um, but it was a cool baptism by fire. And I fell in love with the Whidbey Island's community, especially the southern part of the island. There's a lot of theater up there, and as you folks know, you were just there involved with the Fiddler on the Roof production, that happened at that very same place where I started acting. Uh, Whidbey Island Center for the Arts.

You were a sponsor for that play.

Right? And, um, since then, that area has actually grown a a black box company as well, Outcast Productions. They've long had a children's theater there. I worked with them. Uh, actually, not only did I direct them in an Agatha Christie play, the teens, I should say. I also worked with the teens as they were preparing The Diary of Anne Frank. Uh, I was not the director for that one, but I was brought in to help prepare them. And, they really learned to take it seriously. And they did. They did a lovely job of that. They also have the Island Shakespeare Fest on South Whidbey now. So that whole community has just grown immensely for theatre, as well as having a lot of really excellent musicians, great jazz musicians, and so forth. I never really got the chance, so far, to play music with other Whidbey Islanders much, not in any sort of organized capacity, at least. Um, but I do have several musician friends there and, largely when I'm-I live there now and, largely I focus on the acting. I've directed a couple of shows now, one at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, one at Outcast, the black box. Um, and that's fulfilled a little something in me, but I think I really always end up coming back to wanting to act. So I've done several Shakespeare pieces as well as modern comedies and mysteries, and so that's really where my artistic life is focused. Although I still love to play the guitar and hope to perform in a rock band again sometime.

Well, as a violinist, he had 14 years of lessons that we would schlep him to, and he enjoyed it and did very well in the orchestras, too. And I like to say that the bands that David has been in are the most well in-tuned bands ever. He had a lot of really wonderful roles. You were Norman in The Norman Conquest, right?

Yeah. The Norman Conquest is a trilogy of plays that are often performed sort of in repertory with each other. Um, that I had the lead in for. I'm Sherlock Holmes.

And the violin helped in that, of course, because Holmes played the violin.

Chekhov. Was in a production of Sleuth, a famous play that's been made into a couple of movies. Um.

And he was president, too.

I was the president in the David Mamet play called November. Uh, that we did in 2016, trying to pair it with. Hey, folks, go out and vote. Uh, and if you saw the play, you'd be like, "Oh, because otherwise this can happen." Um.

Oh, that he were president now.

Um. Let's see. A satire that unfortunately became a little too real. Um, so, anyway.

Can I ask you just, like, two more questions? Um, you mentioned that you got to support some younger actors or actors in the Anne Frank. I'm curious if you've gotten the chance to teach in general?

Um, with theater? Uh, yeah. Other than that I've done that a couple of times, a couple of different young people groups that I helped prepare for plays. And then I did direct The Mousetrap, um.

Agatha Christie.

Yeah, that's about it as far as that realm goes, I guess I teach in my job sometimes. I'm-I work for Microsoft. I've done that for many years. Um, so I'm a techie by day, artist by night. Um, and I do a lot of mentoring and teaching, um.

And winning many awards for Microsoft. So he's, you know, he's up here.

I'm just curious if the teaching resonates with you? I know you've been a student of many teachers.

Yeah, it does. Uh, it's never something I said, "Hey, I want to be a teacher." I just found that over time, it's one of the skills I can dig into, and feel good about at the other end, I think. And, in general, teaching and mentoring. You make something better for everybody, right? Um, it's not at the soul of me. Uh, I'm more of an observer and student. I think if I had to pick, I loved learning and thinking and applying knowledge, scientifically, artistically, philosophically, and historically. Um, but I'm happy to teach when it arises if there's somebody who-or that's appropriate. And the rest of the time.

Especially when others around him don't know what he knows. So he has to impart that and share it.

Um, okay. Last question. I'm just-this is pure curiosity. I'm curious about what happened a couple of years ago when you decided to organize a Seder on Whidbey Island? Like why? What motivated that?

Yeah, it's an excellent question. I think I, you know, don't have a lot of Jewish friends. Um, and I had this lovely community of friends. Um, I have a lovely community of friends in the Seattle area as well. Um, but on the island where I spent most of my time of late, and, um, they don't know much about Judaism, either historically or religiously. Um, I don't know, actually, what spurred me that particular year to go for it. Um, maybe it was like, "Hey, I want to try this for myself and see if I like it." Um, I mean, I always like the Seder, I like ceremony, I like it strictly as a fascinating thing, I like ceremony. Catholicism has a lot of interesting things. You know, when I travel in Europe, I love to go to the cathedrals and churches. And the way that man has created art, and ceremony, and traditions, and customs, to try and elevate themselves up to something. The architecture, all with one Uber goal in mind. Um, the works of humanity, when pointed in the right direction, can be quite astounding. So sometimes it's not always pointed in the right direction. And so I focus more on the ceremony itself, and the art, and the architecture. And for this, though, a Seder I get to, you know, now I'm connecting with something that's part of my history. And, um, just sharing, sharing, a piece of important history and custom with others.

Of course, we three would go on Friday nights to Friday night services. And, you know, it wasn't that we were non-participating [Laughs] and we had it's a small town of 30,000. Cortland, New York. And we had our own temple that was designed by a very famous architect who was the Director of Architecture of Syracuse University. Can't remember his name. Can you remember his name? [No.] Werner, Werner Seligmann was him. He passed just recently. But he is among architect people, he's well known. And it's a beautiful synagogue. And we gave a complete-one of the complete Chumashes to-in translation who was done by a relative to the library of the temple. And we've given other things ofworth to us.

Thanks for sharing. Is there anything else you want to make sure we record today?

Nope.

Okay. Thank you so much.